in my skintight jeans
by coffee-stained lips
Summary: They're puzzle pieces that don't fit together, but want so desperately to that they can manage to squeeze in together anyway. / Cat&Beck. Oneshot.


**Oh my gawd. This **_**sucks.**_** I really wanted to contribute to the **_**Victorious**_** fandom, especially with the awards coming up (even though I have **_**no**_** shot). So please forgive me for this. I admire the way Victorious writers usually write, but I'm not very good at doing that kind of writing. Also, I'm trying to work on a prompt from the Victorious Awards forum challenge too, so if you are reading this Lovely Amelie, sorry for not getting it published quite yet.**

It's midnight and her shoes are sparkly against the night sky's backdrop as she twists her leg around in the air. He aligns his own leg with hers, his faded red Nike not at all matching her faux ruby slipper bought at a Halloween store, but in a warped way they connect. Her hair spills over the edge of his RV's roof, and she giggles as the hum of the started motor rumbles in her ears. Beck thinks she's giggling at him (she could be; Cat giggles at most everything, sometimes things intertwined with one another, sometimes nothing at all), and so he drapes one tender arm over hers. Even if she isn't giggling at him, she lets his arm's heat pulsate with hers.

The glitter on her slippers doesn't stay on very well, especially with her waving her foot like a lasso against the stars. A little pinch of the red sparkly slipper rains down on their faces. Beck begins to wipe it out of his jet-black hair and _darkdark_ eyes, but a soft, delicate palm traces his cheeks, Cat's breath faintly whispering the word "no". And so he leaves the glittery sparkles on his face and neck and in his hair, and stares at how much they light up her paled cheekbones and make her red velvety hair shinier.

Without thinking much about it, he leans over to her and places a chaste kiss upon her lips. She tastes like the ruby glitter, sweet and sparkly and innocent, and soon he takes the chasteness right out.

/./././

He takes her out for ice cream one night because she gets one of those sugary cravings he's learned to deal with this summer. All the way to the nearest ice cream parlor she rambles about what flavor she should get because thirty-one _is_ a lot of flavors to mull over. Beck simply drives with this goofy grin on, not really listening to such youthful prattle. In a way this is weird: Cat's polka-dotted tank top and skinny jeans don't fit puzzle piece-perfect in the shape of his leathery car seat, worn and damaged with soda stains and cigarette ashes and whatever the heck else could be squished into the fabric. She's much too vibrant and colorful to complement his enigmatic ambiguity and dark, surreal nature. But then, in another way, she's the only thing that could. The yin and the yang, they say. He's the unexplainable mystery with shark-tooth necklaces and foreign facial features – she's the bubbly girl-next-door with a passion for living and coloring books and cupcakes. Puzzle pieces that don't fit together, but want so desperately to that they can manage to squeeze in together anyway.

Now they're sitting, back to back, on the curb, little drops of ice cream dribbling off their lips. Almost all of her chocolate melts into a puddle between her legs, like a mud pond after a rainy day (which they don't seem to get much around here in California). Cat laps a lot of it off the cone like an over-eager puppy, smearing brown across her cheeks, while Beck licks his dollop of ice cream in smooth, even circles. Cars speed past at a zillion miles per hour, their headlights flashing yellow beams across the highway. They honk, and yell whenever someone cuts in front of them, but these two don't seem to notice. They're locked in their non-puzzle-piecey world.

He turns his head to face the eastern wind, and catches a glimpse of her chocolate-stained cheeks. He purely laughs and lets the wind, mingled with car exhaust and exhales of drunken has-beens and wannabes from across the street, blow against him. She offers a giggle or two as well, even though she hasn't the faintest idea why he's laughing, and proceeds to sloppily eat the rest of her cone.

"Hey, Cat?" he says, staining his tongue with creamy vanilla.

"Hmm?" she murmurs against her own ice cream.

"You got a little schmutz on your face." he says, gesturing to her brownish cheeks. A tint of red glows beneath the brown, and she tries to wipe it off, but most of it has already dried, as if this is now her shade of skin. Cat whimpers a little, embarrassed that she's managed to look so untidy. Beck swivels his body so that their backs no longer touch; he licks his finger, and lightly swabs the chocolate off of her face. When he's done, she stares at her red ruby slippers, clicking her heels together like Dorothy must've.

"I'm so…" she begins, but not able to conjure an appropriate adjective. Beck wraps his arm around her, cone-free hand rubbing up and down her shoulder in soothing movements. He takes his lips and presses them against her cleansed cheeks, taking in the sweet smell of chocolaty residue for his own benefit.

And she doesn't need to finish her sentence, because his opinion is all that matters – and he's kissing her, so that's a good sign, right?

/./././

Their warm bodies press against each other, the cool artificial breeze from the air conditioner whirling around their heads. No, not pressing in _that _way – she cuddles against him during hot nights to sleep, especially after home-related arguments about her or her brother's "problems" she can't seem to take anymore. The bubbling from his aquarium comes every seven-point-five seconds (she counted before she fell asleep) and the weak _swish-swishes_ help Cat to envision cute orange and blue and yellow fish swimming around in their majestic kingdom underwater. She had told him some mermaids would look darling inside, and he just said he didn't think the mermaids could fit, rather than stating point-blank there were no mermaids at all.

(That's what makes him so different, he doesn't pressure her to grow up. He likes her this way; growing up is overrated)

Beck's strong embrace of masculine arms enfold her more so in the style of a father than a lover. He doesn't like to think of it this way, but he does realize that she doesn't count on him just for the kisses and tender hugs on her porch steps every night. She's this fragile porcelain china doll: one misguided touch could shatter her, leaving cracks and holes in her _oh__sotragicallybeautiful_ face.

Cat's nose nuzzles against his chest, and he can tell she's probably dreaming about bunnies and cupcakes and bunnies eating cupcakes. He lets her hair tickle his neck, and absentmindedly smiles when she twists uncomfortably, her nose crinkling like the rabbits she dreams about. Sometimes the buttons of her jeans scrape against his leg, and the scratchy denim fabric is a little hard to sleep with, but she expresses that skin-tight jeans are just the kind of clothes she likes to sleep in. They help her have those teenage dreams all about him (god, when did he become so corny?).

There's a little chill that goes up his back around four o'clock in the morning when she's sprawled over the edge of his bed, one hand caught between his fingers, and she mumbles "_Beck_" in a hopeless, doting fashion. His eyes open immediately, and he tugs her back into his chest faster than she could inhale for another word, because that utterance proves she loves him, and he loves her so much he could almost crumble.

Sometime during this summer he hopes he'll say it.

/./././

Mid-July Cat's family packs up to leave for a trip to the Big Apple, the other land of dreams. Beck races to her house where they're all ready to go, sitting in that beat-up minivan with suitcases piled high in the trunk like they're just one _happy_ family.

She's got her yellow-painted fingers on the handle of the car when he runs up. She turns sharply to face him, beaming up from under her straw hat that makes her look like some seventy-year-old grandma (which, in fact, is who she got it from). Her doe-eyed gaze and dimple indented in her cheek overwhelm him, and Beck kisses her with all the force he can manage that the straw hat actually falls off her head and into the dirt. Whispers erupt inside the car, angry, surprised, and befuddled, but she just digs her yellow fingernails into his shoulders as he pulls off.

"It's only a week, and a half." she says.

"I know." he whispers, "That's why I kissed you – don't go macking on any New Yorker boys while I'm here, hear me?" She giggles, that thought never even entering her mind. She lets herself peck Beck's lips gently before letting go, retrieving her straw hat, and opening the car door. They then drive off, leaving him on the cracked sidewalk in his tarnished red Nikes and flannel shirt.

A week and a half. God, if only he had the willpower.

/./././

_You have __**8**__ missed calls_

_**Beck Oliver**_

_**Beck Oliver**_

_**Beck Oliver**_

_**Beck Oliver**_

_**Beck Oliver**_

_**Beck Oliver **_

_**Beck Oliver **_

_**Beck Oliver**_

.

_You have __**5 **__new text messages_

_**GotBeck: **__S'up. How's NYC? Text me back._

_**GotBeck: **__Hey, didn't text me back. You see Broadway yet? You said you wanted to. Shoot me a text._

_**GotBeck: **__You have WiFi in NY? lol So what about Yankee Stadium? Did you take my Yankee cap to a game? Later. Don't forget to text me._

_**ToriVega: **__Cat, PLZ text Beck! He won't shut UP! Andre and Robbie are starting to get cheesed off 2!_

_**GotBeck: **__I miss you._

/./././

He's half-asleep one night, listening to some new Katy Perry song on the radio. It feels very strange, to Beck, not to have someone sleeping beside him, especially on these scorching California nights. His eyes reach the clock: it glows with 10:00 PM in blocky, bright letters that nearly blind him. He drapes one arm over his eyes, and kicks the sheets off in frustration.

There's a creak. He lifts his arm off of his eyes – the first thing he sees is a straw hat.

/./././

The next day Cat gabs on and on about her vacation. She explains how Keith threw up before and after both airplane trips, and how they ate at all these fancy New York restaurants, and how they saw Wicked at Gershwin Theatre, and how they saw a Yankee game (Beck tries to look sympathetic rather than amused when she says her brother almost got pummeled in his Red Sox T-shirt), and how they overlooked the New York Harbor from the Statue of Liberty. When she's all tuckered out, she hands him a miniature statue of the green lady, bought from one of those cheap airport gift shops. There's a switch on her back that makes her torch light up, and his girlfriend squeals in delight whenever it does.

"Thanks, Cat." He grins and pulls her against him in a near bone-crushing hug, except she likes the firmness he uses. Her straw hat rests next to his Yankee ball cap, both tarnished in their little ways, his cap having loose threads of blue and white, her hat having splinters of straw jutting outward and inward. Just like them, they don't belong on the same nightstand, but then of course how can't they?

"You're welcome." she says, "I'm sorry I didn't call or text you back. We were just so busy – "

"Pfft, I know that," he says, rolling his eyes, "I wasn't _that_ worried – you were just halfway across the country, spending summer without me, but I was cool 'bout it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she nearly cries. Beck quickly envelopes her into a strong kiss, much like the one from a week and a half before, and that tension of his supposed not-caring melts like butter into her lips.

/./././

The last day of summer, a nasty humid August day, looms overhead like a thundercloud just waiting to ruin your baseball game. Which, ironically, is what they've just finished doing with André, Tori, Robbie, and Jade. They're completely scuffed up, head to toe in dirt and grime and mud. Tori complains all the way down the sidewalk about the filth, and Robbie tries to discreetly dislodge a wedgie.

They all relax on top of Beck's RV, soda cans distributed from his blue cooler. André tries to instigate a fun sing-along with his handheld radio, but Jade just throws her crumpled-up Pepsi can at him because it _was_ his idea to play a ragtag game of baseball. Beck and Cat are off to the far side of his roof on their bellies, a foot or so away from the rest of them, and nobody wants to bother them on this, their last night of summer.

He clinks his aluminum can against hers symbolically, like a toast, and each swallows some of their caffeine of choice. Cat's got her legs up in the air, crossed, and Beck recalls the first night of lying atop here, her ruby slippers creating a glitter shower on their faces. (She insisted on wearing her magic ruby slippers to play baseball instead of sneakers, and no one had the heart to argue because, well, who could be victorious in a fight against Cat?) She's still oddly beautiful with those slippers on and another of his baseball relics, this time a Cardinals jersey with PUJOLS in loud lettering on the back. He's not even sure she knows who Albert Pujols is, but she says the jersey is "comfy" – he can't deny her comfort.

Cat eyes his can thirstily, her own of grape soda sloshing in her hand. "Beck?" she says, "Will you pour some in mine?" She looks at him pleadingly, lower lip protruding in a pout. She asks this whenever they have different sodas, for some odd that's-just-Cat reason Beck can't seem to understand wholly, in spite of his attempts. But he tells her to hold her can out, and he pours a dash of orange into her grape, and then she makes him stay still so she can put a grapey tang into his. Then, they again clink their cans as if champagne were in them.

"To…summer." he says.

"To autumn, spring, and winter too." she responds, never one to leave anybody out. They drink then, and don't stop until miniscule droplets of condensation are all that remain. Beck crumples them both up, and tosses them playfully André's way, which makes the other boy yell "There's nothing wrong with baseball!"

They laugh, and Cat sidles under Beck's arm (which makes for an awkward entanglement, considering the lack of room and the fact they're lying down). They gaze up at the stars, seeking out pretty constellations. Suddenly, a twinkle and rush of stardust goes across the sky. Cat gasps, happily: a shooting star. She looks so peaceful, serene, _joyful_ after this star passes, and she reopens her eyes after making a closed-eye wish. It just seems so right, the moment.

"I love you." he murmurs into her disarray of red hair. She grins and kisses his shoulder fondly.

/./././

She never tells him that that was her shooting-star wish.

(But Beck can gather that all on his own)

**Okay, maybe it wasn't that sucky. But I'm not really happy with it either. Thanks for reading though, even if it wasn't very good. This couple just needs more, especially in the fluff department!**


End file.
